Skaters on Magazine Covers

Do you remember some of the wonderful magazine covers that featured some of our favorite figure skaters?

Sports Illustrated, 1968 - "US Olympic Champion Peggy Fleming".
Peggy was shown stroking on an outdoor rink in Grenoble, France, the morning after she won her gold medal. She was wearing the chartreuse green dress her mother had sewn for her.

Life Magzine, 1968 - "Olympic Charmer, Peggy Fleming". Peggy was shown on the podium, waving to the crowd, with her gold medal wrapped around her neck.

Sports Illustrated, 1976 - Olympic preview issue that featured Dorothy Hamill twirling in a butterfly move (I think). Her hair was flying in the air. Dorothy was then a 3-time US champion and two-time World silver medalist. She was picked as a potential medalist, but not particularly as the gold medalist.

Sports Illustrated, 1988 - "Bravo Brian!" - Brian Boitano, the US men's gold medalist, was shown landing one of his triples, with a great, big smile. The cover story's title was "Great Skates" - and was it ever a night of great skating!

Sports Illustrated, 1992 - "American Dream" - Kristi Yamaguchi, the women's gold medalist, was shown with her gold medal, the first American woman to claim Olympic gold since Peggy Fleming.

I distinctly remember Dorothy Hamill also making the cover of TIME in 1976 with a big headline that read "Artistry On Ice."

Last year, TIME must've had a premonition, as they chose Sarah Hughes as their cover girl over Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen, the opening week of the olympics. Of course, a week later, the cover featured a big close up of Salé and Peletier with a headline bemoaning the corruption of a classy sport.

Wasn't Sarah Hughes on the cover of Time magazine just prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics? The caption read something like:
"Sarah Hughes hopes to join Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen on the Olympic podium". Talk about an understatement!

Wasn't there a Sports Illustrated cover in '91 that showed Kristi, Nancy Kerrigan, and Tonya Harding? The caption was something about three US ladies on the podium at Worlds that year.

Then there is the Newseek, 2002, preOlympic, "Can Michelle Kwan Kick Ice?" cover, with Michelle doing something like lifting a barbell. A lot of "hear me roar" photos in the article, one with Michelle in a bikini getting out of a pool.

Whoever it was at Time who made the decision to go with the Sarah Hughes cover probably got a huge raise and a promotion after picking Sarah to win the gold. Not even the Vegas odds makers gave her much of a chance.
Rgirl